The backtracking search optimization algorithm for frequency band and time segment selection in motor imagery-based brain-computer interfaces.

Common spatial pattern (CSP) is a powerful algorithm for extracting discriminative brain patterns in motor imagery-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). However, its performance depends largely on the subject-specific frequency band and time segment. Accurate selection of most responsive frequency band and time segment remains a crucial problem. A novel evolutionary algorithm, the backtracking search optimization algorithm is used to find the optimal frequency band and the optimal combination of frequency band and time segment. The former is searched by a frequency window with changing width of which starting and ending points are selected by the backtracking optimization algorithm; the latter is searched by the same frequency window and an additional time window with fixed width. The three parameters, the starting and ending points of frequency window and the starting point of time window, are jointly optimized by the backtracking search optimization algorithm. Based on the chosen frequency band and fixed or chosen time segment, the same feature extraction is conducted by CSP and subsequent classification is carried out by Fisher discriminant analysis. The classification error rate is used as the objective function of the backtracking search optimization algorithm. The two methods, named BSA-F CSP and BSA-FT CSP, were evaluated on data set of BCI competition and compared with traditional wideband (8-30[Formula: see text]Hz) CSP. The classification results showed that backtracking search optimization algorithm can find much effective frequency band for EEG preprocessing compared to traditional broadband, substantially enhancing CSP performance in terms of classification accuracy. On the other hand, the backtracking search optimization algorithm for joint selection of frequency band and time segment can find their optimal combination, and thus can further improve classification rates.